Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.5

Korn: Live at Montreux 2004 Blu-ray Movie Review

This band takes the stage and completely destroys it!!

Reviewed by Sir Terrence May 21, 2009

This is my second review of a Korn concert, and my opinion of this band has not changed one bit. This group projects both visually and sonically enough energy to light up New York City for ten years. I am still picking up the paint chips off my listening room floor, as the power of this band literally scraped the paint off the walls. Their songs are infectious, with driving beats that engage the listener and force you to head slam with them. For the entire concert they never let up, throwing up one driving song after another, until you are totally exhausted but completely satisfied at what you have experienced. Their songs are dynamic; featuring driving beats followed by slightly subtle musical transitions that power you back to the highly powered rhythms. Dreaded hair flies everywhere, the crowd jumps and howls frantically as they power through their set. Front man Jonathan Davis plays his bagpipe; head bangs, howls, screams, and thrashes about like a cornered wild animal. Brian Welch's guitar rips one riff after another, filling the air with screeching solo's to the delight of the crowd. Reginald Arvizu's bass had my subwoofer driver undulating in a growling frightful fit, as it reproduced his thick bass playing. Drummer David Silvera beats the ever loving hell out of his kit, messaging my skin with every hit. This quartet creates a wall of sound akin to the sound of a thousand buffalo hoofs pounding the dirt into oblivion.

Filmed on July 5, 2004, the band takes the stage at the legendary Montreux Jazz Festival and properly destroys it. They have one of the most integrated multimedia presentations I have ever seen. Each light scene works hand in hand with the music, visually emphasizing the power and drive of the music. Davis engages the crowd with confidence, often coaxing them to sing along. Halfway through my viewing of this concert, my twin sons walk in the room heads banging and hair flying in the air. Between them and the band, it looked like a bunch of horse tails thrashing in the breeze. While most fans would agree this is not the band strongest set list of songs, the band performs the heck out of it, and that makes viewing this concert very enjoyable.

The set list is as follows:

1. Right Now
2. Break Some Off
3. Got The Life
4. Here To Stay
5. Falling Away From Me
6. Blind
7. Shoots And Ladders
8. One
9. Freak On A Leash
10. A.D.I.D.A.S.
11. Dead Bodies Everywhere
12. Did My Time
13. Another Brick In The Wall
14. F***t
15. Somebody Someone
16. Y'All Want A Single

Korn: Live at Montreux 2004 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Korn: Live at Montreux 2004 explodes onto the Blu-ray format in a 1080i/AVC encode, framed in a 1:78:1 video window. Shot with high definition cameras, the images look clean and noise free. The transfer is sharp from start to finish, with not a soft shot to be found. Contrast is occasionally hot, especially when the lights are full on, and black crush is also evident but not overly distracting. Colors are vibrant, flooding the stage with beautiful primaries, secondary's, and hues. Detail is excellent, giving you the ability to tell black leather from similarly black cotton, and see every drop of sweat coming from the performers faces. Image depth is very good, especially when the crowd is pulled into the shots. This is a pretty solid transfer, but not the best I have seen with concert videos on the Blu-ray format.

Korn: Live at Montreux 2004 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

This concert performance features three audio choices to message your eardrums. There is a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track encoded at 16/48 kHz bit and sample rate, a Dolby TrueHD with an identical bit and sample rate, and a LPCM stereo track at also at 16/48 kHz bit and sample rate. After listening briefly to all three, I chose the DTS track for its better balance with the understanding the TrueHD is not audibly different. Unfortunately much like the last Korn release I reviewed, the vocals are completely unintelligible next to the onslaught of instruments. It is not Davis's microphone technique, as I noticed he is practically eating the mike. This is definitely an audio mixing issue as the clarity could have been better with a little more gain, and a judicious use of EQ. The bass from the LFE is fat, highly detailed, and extremely powerful. When played back, the mix comes at you like a large wall of sound, pounding your chest with anger and fury. The surrounds open up the mix with the addition of ambience, but crowd noises dominate its use

Comparing the different offerings was relatively easy. Except for minor volume differences, the DTS-HD encode, and the TrueHD encode sound identical. The LPCM stereo track was more clearly delineated than the codec's, but suffered balance issues between the bass and all the other elements. The bass was just too overwhelming to be enjoyed, despite being the clearer of all the audio offerings.

Korn: Live at Montreux 2004 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements on this release unfortunately.

Korn: Live at Montreux 2004 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I purchased this disc just to review it, and I am not sorry one bit that I did. When I finished watching it, a fight ensued as my boys attempted to lift it from the cabinet, and take it to their place to watch. I caved however, but not without owning their souls until it is returned. While not Korn's best offerings song wise, their performance cannot be faulted. These guys put on a high energy show that keeps giving moment after moment. I highly recommend this release for fans of Korn, but I would recommend this to any nu-metal fan on the strength of the performance alone.